There may be no road home, no trail branching from the present to the dim lane of the past, but a few of the landmarks remain. A glacial lake. A rock face towering over a valley. A cascade flanked by black stones.
What a beautiful evocative essay. Thank you my friend. Reminded me very much of some solo backpacking trips in the Eagles Nest wilderness near Vail. Camping by a high alpine lake above tree line is a treasure most won’t ever find. ❤️
If you know, you know... I lived in Evergreen for a year and worked with the Forest Service near Granby, Fraser, and Winter Park, but I never made it to Vail. Colorado remains something of a foreign place to me. I'd have to live there longer to feel that I understood it.
Lovely slow burn of images in this essay - "the creek tumbling over the rim like a strand of white hair," for example. There's something very special about those wilderness places that are hard to get to.
Glad it resonated with you, Tara. This is a particularly arduous hike, so I think my kids will need to ask before I'll take them. The Selway-Bitterroot is the place I think I'll "make" them visit first. If I get to hike the Selway Trail with my own Selway someday, what a gift that would be.
Beautiful writing, Josh. I love the animalistic image of you as a boy planting a hand on either side of the creek to drink. Something you can't get back, in that. Hard to believe Les was permanently disabled by that accident! And Barbara...I didn't get the sense that your love was slipping away. Maybe that was what gave rise to her "bad feeling"? I enjoyed the weaving of memories from your childhood and then as a young man. A Place Inhabits the Past as Feeling.
Les's fall killed him in the end, it just took about 16 years. His mother cared for him at home for many years. I used to go play guitar for him when he was first released to a care facility in Missoula. Very sad.
I'm not sure quite what you mean -- Barbara's love was slipping away? It's hard to know with some of those relationships that don't last longer than a year, whose love ebbed, whether it was really love. But I think we all know the feeling of trying to make a relationship what it does not naturally want to be. Sometimes that work deepens a bond; sometimes it just clarifies the fault lines.
I mentioned this in another comment thread, but I have only shared that deep connection to wilderness with two women, both friends.
"A breeze cooled our cheeks and sank over the ridge like the thought of our love slipping away." That was the line I was referring to. Nothing suggested that in the relationship you describe until this line. Thanks for sharing the links to the other pieces.
What a beautiful evocative essay. Thank you my friend. Reminded me very much of some solo backpacking trips in the Eagles Nest wilderness near Vail. Camping by a high alpine lake above tree line is a treasure most won’t ever find. ❤️
If you know, you know... I lived in Evergreen for a year and worked with the Forest Service near Granby, Fraser, and Winter Park, but I never made it to Vail. Colorado remains something of a foreign place to me. I'd have to live there longer to feel that I understood it.
Thanks for reading!
Nature doesn’t know state lines. IYKYK ☺️
What a lovely piece of writing this is. Your imagery made me feel my own toes in the cold lake water. Bravo.
Thanks so much!
I lost myself in this piece - transported to your past …
Thanks so much, Noha!
This was a mesmerizing read.
Thanks for sharing. I have been pondering on the importance of childhood places
Reminded me of CloverStroud’s post below.
https://cloverstroud.substack.com/p/does-a-landscape-absorb-us-as-we
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for reading! And for the lead.
You're making me homesick, Josh. Beautiful story.
Thank you, Ben! I think you and I might even be homesick even if we were there, in those native places.
Lovely slow burn of images in this essay - "the creek tumbling over the rim like a strand of white hair," for example. There's something very special about those wilderness places that are hard to get to.
Will you take your kids to Snowshoe Lake?
Glad it resonated with you, Tara. This is a particularly arduous hike, so I think my kids will need to ask before I'll take them. The Selway-Bitterroot is the place I think I'll "make" them visit first. If I get to hike the Selway Trail with my own Selway someday, what a gift that would be.
That makes sense. :-)
Ah, the memoir
Thank you, Mary!
Beautiful writing, Josh. I love the animalistic image of you as a boy planting a hand on either side of the creek to drink. Something you can't get back, in that. Hard to believe Les was permanently disabled by that accident! And Barbara...I didn't get the sense that your love was slipping away. Maybe that was what gave rise to her "bad feeling"? I enjoyed the weaving of memories from your childhood and then as a young man. A Place Inhabits the Past as Feeling.
Les's fall killed him in the end, it just took about 16 years. His mother cared for him at home for many years. I used to go play guitar for him when he was first released to a care facility in Missoula. Very sad.
I'm not sure quite what you mean -- Barbara's love was slipping away? It's hard to know with some of those relationships that don't last longer than a year, whose love ebbed, whether it was really love. But I think we all know the feeling of trying to make a relationship what it does not naturally want to be. Sometimes that work deepens a bond; sometimes it just clarifies the fault lines.
I mentioned this in another comment thread, but I have only shared that deep connection to wilderness with two women, both friends.
Here is one: https://www.selwaybitterroot.org/csj.
DJ Lee, whose memoir "Remote" is just stunning, is the other.
https://debbiejlee.com/remote/
"A breeze cooled our cheeks and sank over the ridge like the thought of our love slipping away." That was the line I was referring to. Nothing suggested that in the relationship you describe until this line. Thanks for sharing the links to the other pieces.
Ah, I’d meant to nuance more of that with verbs and sensory detail earlier, but I probably was being too obscure!
Can't beat a fishin story : )
Thanks for reading!
beautiful Josh. Just stunning.
That made my day. Thanks, brother.
Thank you for taking me with you to Snowshoe Lake...never made it there (and won't).
I'm glad you enjoyed the vicarious hike!